


waking up slow

by callieincali



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Post S3, They have different names, Time Loop, cunningkim, read this if the season 4 teaser leaves you wanting more sam and kim, wickoff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-05-15 10:32:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14788856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callieincali/pseuds/callieincali
Summary: au, in which, if you haven’t met your soulmate but have been in the same vicinity of one another, the day will keep repeating until you find each other





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> soo, i had this idea brewing for a WHILE and i was just discouraged to do it bc it’s a bit,,, complex? i gave in tho bc i can’t resist wickoff. shocking, i know. 
> 
> this picks up right where s3 ends but it’s in no way canon since it’s a soulmate au. i had to pick their names for them since we never got any but when they are released i’ll just come back and edit in the real ones. also i may have tweaked the prompt a bit. 
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> edit: sdcc has informed me thay julia’s new name is kim and kady’s is sam. the change has been made!

Kim let a finger drag over the skin just below her eyes, tugging at the dark bags until the red undersides of her eyelids were visible in the mirror. A full eight hours of sleep and she could have convinced herself she’d been up since last week. She dropped her hands to her side with a sigh, absentmindedly finding the drawer at her waist and tugging it open. She rummaged through the clutter until she blindly identified a small tube of concealer with the price sticker still sealing the bottle shut. The messily crumpled receipt grazed the back of her hand as she pulled the makeup from the drawer, unable to unclench her fist from around it, embarrassed by its implication.  
  
She was only twenty-three. She had survived the overwhelming stresses of high school and college with no more than a caffeine addiction, but somehow now, with a steady job, a decent sleep schedule, and enough money to live more than comfortably, she couldn’t look at herself in the mirror without noticing how incredibly tired— no, _exhausted_ — she appeared.   
  
And the changes in her visage didn’t come on gradually. As far as she could tell, she had gone to bed one night looking as young as any twenty-three year old should, but woke up the next morning with the face of a sleep-deprived girl who had been through hell and back.   
  
And after hearing one too many aside inquiries from her coworkers of whether or not she was feeling okay, Kim trudged shamefully into the nearest drug store and bought herself a tube of concealer to cover up the dark circles under her eyes that she swore didn’t belong there.   
  
Kim sighed again, letting her cheeks puff out as she slowly peeled her fingers from where they covered the lid of the makeup, using her other hand to twist it open.   
  
The rehearsed speech for her office presentation played through her mind like a song set on repeat, the flaws correcting themselves with each repetition as she continued getting ready for the day. By the time she had thrown her hair up in a neat bun with five minutes to spare, the presentation felt ironed out and perfect, just as she planned it to be.   
  
It was a proposal for a Center for the Arts to be built in the city, and also one of her most important projects to date, which automatically set her into a go-mode that felt ingrained in her since childhood. She always had been an overachiever.   
  
Kim locked her apartment door behind her, mouthing the introduction of her speech for the umpteenth time that morning as she made her way towards the coffee shop a few blocks from her, neatly organized briefcase in tow.   
  
She ordered an iced coffee with cream, as usual, and tipped the barista a dollar just as typically. He thanked her, she smiled, waved and continued towards her office. It was just like any other morning walk to work, filled with the constant New York City soundtrack of cars honking and people shouting— it didn’t even phase her anymore.   
  
She sipped from the straw in her drink, eyes landing on a figure in the distance— a dark, curly-haired girl, carrying a stack of overfilled cardboard boxes in her arms and shouting at someone beyond the walls of a rundown apartment complex. At least she figured she was shouting at _someone_ , but in a city with its fair share of heavily intoxicated individuals, she never truly could tell.   
  
As she neared the girl, the conversation taking place grew clear enough for Kim to listen in on.   
  
“You said that three months ago,” a male voice shouted from just beyond an open window.   
  
“I told you I’ll have the money next week.” The girl hiked up her knee to steady the wobbling boxes, peering out from behind them and attempting to shout back at the man in the building. Kim watched as he shook his head from inside, reaching up for the latch to close the window. “But I won’t be able to do that if I’m fucking evicted!” The girl managed just before the sound of metal hitting metal signaled he would no longer be listening.   
  
Kim tore her gaze away at that, concluding enough from that excerpt of the whole conversation, and chewed at the tip of her straw as she hurried forward, not wanting to be anything close to late for her presentation.   
  
“You’re not getting any money from me, then,” the girl continued, despite the obvious indication that there would be no response. Kim shook her head minutely and took another long sip from her coffee. “Fuck you,” she called out finally and stepped back to leave, which would have been fine had it not been at the precise moment Kim walked closer, sending the girl’s body crashing into hers.   
  
She felt ice-cold liquid spilling down her front before she had time to react, leaving, by default, her only reaction to be gasping loudly at the sudden temperature change. The dark-haired girl spun around and mirrored the gasp, taking in the sight of Kim’s pristinely white shirt now turned brown and dropping the boxes to the ground beside her.   
  
“Shit,” she muttered, looking between Kim and the boxes as if her mind was reeling with possible solutions to the situation. “Uh, hold on, I have a towel in here somewhere.”   
  
“Oh my god, this is not happening,” were the first words Kim managed to choke out, her free hand wiping vigorously at the liquid soaking her chest as if it would be any help. The girl took to rummaging through the box at the top of the stack until she pulled out a light blue towel, decorated with occasional stains that made Kim cringe. She accepted it anyway, pressing it against her shirt and huffing out a sigh of disbelief.   
  
“Sorry, I—“   
  
“A towel and an apology aren’t going to fix the fact that my _white_ shirt is _brown_ because you can’t watch where you’re walking,” Kim snapped back, clenching a fist around the towel and letting it fall to her side at the realization of its futility. The girl lowered her eyebrows defensively.   
  
“It was an accident. I can give you the money to buy a new one if you really need it.” The girl’s green eyes scanned Kim up and down, probably taking in every expensive piece of clothing and jewelry on her person. She could easily afford a new shirt, but that didn’t change the urgency of the situation. She checked her watch; ten minutes until she needed to clock in. And at least a five-minute walk left ahead of her.   
  
“I don’t have time to buy a new shirt. And I wouldn’t need your money if I did,” she spat, intending every bit of offense that shone through. The girl scoffed and shook her head, turning back to the box and rummaging through it yet again. She sent a look towards Kim that indicated she should wait. Kim spilled the little remaining of her coffee onto the sidewalk in disgust, just as the taller girl revealed a white button-up from her belongings, holding it out for Kim to take.   
  
“That’s the best I can do.”   
  
She traded the soaked towel for the shirt, flashing the curly-haired girl a blatantly fake smile. “Thanks,” Kim said insincerely, tucking the shirt under her arm and storming off without another word.   
  
She managed to make it to her office with enough time to change into the button-up and tuck it into her red skirt in a way that looked close enough to business formal as she was going to get for the day. The upcoming speech played through her head as she attempted to dry her skirt with the last moments she could spare before looking at herself in the mirror— immediately drawn to the concealer under her eyes, though she wasted no time to dwell on it as she had earlier— and tidying her hair with a few encouraging words falling from her lips.   
  
She pushed open the bathroom door with a minute to spare, the irritating reminder of a curly-haired girl fresh on her mind.

 

* * *

  
  
Kim lay in bed that night, her mind fixated on particular jade green eyes and a white button-up now residing in her wash machine.   
  
She fell asleep to the thoughts of her successful speech despite the unfortunate events that preceded it, and dreamed of an unfamiliar broken heart-shaped necklace, engraved with writing she couldn’t make out. The girl from the street was wearing it, a smirk curving the corner of her lips.   
  
Kim could hear her own voice, distorted and muffled as if it were being said underwater, speaking to the girl, and the girl’s voice replying in a similar manner, distant and indistinct, all except one word that came back clear as day and as loud as an alarm.   
  
_Julia._   
  
Kim shot up in bed at the sound of it.   
  
Her forehead was dampened with sweat, the intricate details of the odd dream evaporating like steam with each moment that brought her further into consciousness. It was less than ten minutes until her alarm was set to go off, but she felt far too awake to take advantage of the last few minutes of sleep.   
  
Kim threw the covers from on top of her legs, padding her way across the hardwood floor and into the bathroom where she noticed the first oddity to make her question whether or not she had truly woken up.   
  
Her pajamas were not the ones she remembered changing into the night before. She quirked a brow at her reflection, stepping closer and recognizing the outfit as the one she wore to bed on the night before her big presentation. Without coffee running through her, she couldn’t even begin to consider an explanation and simply shook her head, continuing her daily routine as usual. Shower, breakfast, get ready for work. She made it through the first two steps without a problem, but found more confusion as she entered the bathroom for the second time, poking at the dark circles under her eyes.   
  
She wondered if the strange dream was the cause of her exhausted appearance— perhaps the same one had been occurring without her knowledge and leaving her less than fully rested. She pulled open the drawer at her waist and retrieved the concealer from inside it, shaking her head disbelievingly at the sight of the perfectly sealed tube, held shut by the price sticker.   
  
“What the—“ she mumbled, wasting no time to twist it open and ponder on what the hell was happening to her.   
  
Kim peered into her wash machine before leaving the house, taken aback when she found only the metal interior to be staring back at her; no button-up, no coffee-soiled clothes. The possibility of her previous day somehow being part of the dream that startled her awake bounced through her thoughts, explaining enough of her confusion to seem plausible, so she filed the strange occurrences under the lazy reasoning and hurried out her front door, too sleepy to consider anything else.   
  
She stopped for coffee, tipped the barista, smiled graciously, waved, and continued down the city blocks, as she would on any other morning, sipping her drink and taking in the sounds of the streets.   
  
The familiar shouting in the distance shook her from her regular routine, however, drawing her attention to a mane of curly-hair that felt burned into her memory.   
  
“I told you I’ll have the money next week.” Kim heard as she approached, twisting her stomach as she remembered the exact words and the ones that would follow; a sense of déjà vu far more realistic than any other time she had felt it.   
  
“You’re not getting any money from me, then,” the girl shouted, just as Kim expected her to. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the dark, curly locks, too enveloped in the mess of thoughts racing through her head. The sound of the girl cursing the man in the building came next, not long before the identical sensation of iced coffee dripping down her blouse stole Kim’s breath and left her speechless.   
  
“Shit, uh, hold on, I have a towel in here somewhere.” The girl turned to start searching through the box but before she could pull open one of the cardboard flaps, Kim gathered what little sense she could make of the situation and spoke.   
  
“You’ve spilled coffee on me before,” she said, stopping the taller girl’s movements. Green eyes traced over Kim, stopping on her face a moment too long, in a way Kim hadn’t noticed last time. The green irises pierced through her, staring as if they saw something they’d spent a while looking for. The girl shook her head, breaking the intense eye contact and pulling the blue towel from the box.   
  
“I— think I would remember that.”   
  
Kim took the towel and patted away some of the excess moisture, at a loss for why she remembered a moment so vividly, and yet, the girl who shared the moment with her was none the wiser.   
  
“None of this seems familiar to you?” She clarified, motioning in the space between them. The girl lowered her eyebrows in confusion.   
  
“No?” Kim refused to accept the answer, not after the way she had seen the girl staring at her.   
  
“You’ve never met me before in your life?” Kim rephrased, hoping for a different response.   
  
“I might have? What’s your name?” Kim swore there was a defensiveness in her voice— one that could have convinced her there was more to the story than what the girl was telling.   
  
She opened her mouth to answer the simple question, but stopped when her mind suddenly flooded with the same word that had startled her awake that morning.   
  
_Julia._   
  
It felt misplaced, peculiar that some random name would almost find its way out if her mouth instead of the one she had been called all her life. The name felt magnetic in a sense, as if thinking of it had the power to draw her thoughts in that direction. She let the word spread through her mind, body humming with the connection it drew from within her.   
  
Kim played off the hesitation by clearing her throat, shaking the weirdly intrusive thought from her head. “It’s Kim, but I never told you that.” The second half of the answer came out as a quiet mumble, meant mostly as a note to herself, but the girl must have overheard it, because her eyebrows dropped lower, her stance shifting uncomfortably.   
  
“I don’t know a Kim.”   
  
”Yeah, I know that but—“ Kim stopped and flipped her wrist over to read her watch, realizing how much time she had wasted talking to the girl. She couldn’t spare any longer to discuss her confusion with a near stranger. “Do you have a shirt I can change into?”   
  
The girl relaxed slightly, turning back to the box and retrieving the same white button-up for Kim to replace her ruined shirt with. “Here you go, crazy lady.”   
  
A light redness rose in Kim’s cheeks at the understanding of how insane she probably sounded, but she played it off with a polite grin. “Thanks.” She moved to leave but stopped before she got more than a step away, still feeling an odd connection to the girl. “What’s your name, just out of curiosity?”   
  
Green eyes found her again and scanned her up and down, obvious skepticism being the reason behind the gesture. “Sam.”   
  
“Sam,” Kim repeated to herself, willing it to unearth some memory from inside her. Nothing surfaced at the name, and nothing felt familiar about it.   
  
She shook herself from the tangent her thoughts had left on, deciding she done more than enough to interrupt the girl’s day. “Thanks. Again.”   
  
Kim carried on through her shift in a daze, somehow making it through her presentation (which she already remembered giving) without forgetting too many of her key points. She wanted nothing more than to put an end to the peculiarity that had tainted her day.   
  
But even when she did— even when she dumped her clothing into the wash machine and climbed into her queen-sized bed, she found no escape from the questions that swelled so large they’d given her a headache.   
  
She fell asleep with no answers.   
  
The dream that filled her subconscious was, unsurprisingly of the so-called Sam and the heart necklace around her neck, but this time there was no muffled conversation, only a blaring instruction that fell from Sam’s lips.   
  
“You have to meet me.”   
  
The vision faded to blackness and left her mind void of dreams for the rest of the night.   
  
When she woke up, dampened in a cold sweat and reeling with the memory of the instruction, the first thing she did was pull open the makeup drawer of her bathroom.   
  
And the first item that caught her attention was a white tube of concealer, the price tag still newly taping the lid shut.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i know, it’s been a while and this is short and probably not worth the wait bc it’s 100% filler but it’s all important to include so,, 
> 
> next chapter will be less static i promise.

Kim sat on the edge of her bed, running her fingers through her hair and forcing a few steadying breaths to clear her head.  
  
She’d seen the movies— practically watched anything out there about time loops with Quentin, probably more than once. They all held some similar message about self-improvement or mending past mistakes and adjusting the future, but those were just movies, where everything happened for a reason and everything worked out in the end.  
  
Kim couldn’t remember when she had grown so pessimistic but something deep inside her knew real life didn’t play out the same way. She didn’t even know if she believed time loops truly existed in real life. And if they did, she couldn’t believe that someone as normal and average as herself would be trapped in one. She was probably going insane— one too many coffees or too much stress at work. There was probably some logical, scientific explanation for what she was experiencing, though anything that came to her mind didn’t fit either of those descriptions.  
  
Kim breathed a sigh that led into a groan and stood from her bed, returning to the bathroom and catching sight of her tired face in the mirror.  
  
Self-improvement. Like it wasn’t something constantly on her mind in the first place. Like she hadn’t spent her entire life trying to improve herself— trying to be better, be the best at her job, the top of her class. If the universe was trying to relay the message that Kim should refine herself, she already got the memo.  
  
But if there was anyone who knew the saying ‘practice makes progress, not perfect’ to be true, it was Kim. She immediately compiled a list of her shortcomings as she stared at her reflection, something she was no stranger to.  
  
Her speech blinked through her thoughts; it was basically impeccable after the hours she’d spent on it, but perhaps it hadn’t sat well with the conference members. Maybe her mind had been elsewhere after having the coffee she should have been drinking spilled down her shirt. And maybe the universe needed her to do well on that presentation for some unbeknownst reason.  
  
Kim huffed again, turning on the faucet and bringing handfuls of water to splash over her face. She could rewrite a speech in thirty minutes. Or at least, she told herself she could to stop the ball of stress growing inside her.  
  
She opened her intactly sealed concealer for the third time and dabbed some under her eyes, noting that the whole ‘time-loop’ mess she’d been sucked into hadn’t helped the dark circles appear any less noticeable.  
  
The speech practically adjusted itself, shifting and changing until Kim barely recognized it but thought it to be somewhat stronger than what she started with. She mouthed the words as she locked her front door behind her, leaving her apartment complex to see the same morning that had unfolded in front of her twice before.  
  
She didn’t smile or wave to the barista who made her coffee this time, too wrapped up in her own thoughts and reassurances of this day being the one to finally break the loop. Her speech was improved and whatever was supposed to follow her successful speech would finally be given a way to.  
  
And she almost started to believe those affirmations until she was shocked from where she grew lost in her head and back to the real world by the annoyingly familiar feeling of ice falling down the inside of her shirt and eliciting a gasp from her.  
  
Kim’s cheeks burned in anger, her mouth opening to lay into Sam once more about how oblivious she was to the streets around her, but the reminder of the dream that had plagued her subconscious hours before forced her to stop.  
  
_You_ _have_ _to_ _meet_ _me._  
  
Self-improvement, that’s what Kim was aiming for. And if she fixed a collection of small things throughout her day, she figured one of them somewhere along the way would have to be the one to break the loop.  
  
Kim forced a neutral expression, wiping at some of the liquid on her shirt.  
  
Sam turned around and met Kim’s gaze with the same green eyes that she swore could have become greener since their last run-in. And this time Kim caught the brief look of recognition that overtook Sam’s features. It hadn’t strengthened or weakened since the last time Kim noticed it, but something about it still filled her with an inkling of suspicion— one she filed away for later contemplation.  
  
“Shit,” Sam looked between Kim and her boxes, immediately setting the one in her grasp on top of a pile of two more and beginning to rummage through them. “Uh, hold on, I have a towel in here somewhere.”  
  
Kim waited expectantly, suppressing the annoyance towards Sam for bumping into her, and towards herself for not remembering to look where she was walking. Sam turned with a towel in hand and held it out for Kim to take, obvious sincerity in her gaze. She hadn’t noticed it before, and it almost made her feel bad for being so cruel to her in the past two days.  
  
“Sorry, I didn’t see you coming.”  
  
“No, really, it’s my fault. I wasn’t paying attention. I’ve just— got this big speech today. Too focused on that, I guess,” she muttered, still vaguely irritated. She soaked up most of the liquid with the towel, leaving just the light brown stain in its wake. Sam brought her hand to her forehead, rubbing at it with a faint grimace on her face.  
  
“And now I just ruined your clothes. Fuck, I— I might have a white shirt in here, too.”  
  
It was a strange feeling, knowing exactly what would happen before it did, like rewatching a movie and being able to quote the lines as they played on the screen.  
  
Sam rummaged through the mess and retrieved the white button-up Kim had worn two other times now, and offered it to Kim with a apologetic look on her face. Without the blurring effects of anger, she took in Sam’s features, recognizing them in a way that felt as if she’d known them far longer than three repeats of the same day. She stared into the vibrant green irises, noting the tugging in her chest they prompted; she felt drawn to her, and staring into jade eyes seemed like something could spend all day doing.  
  
Kim tucked the clothing under her arm, standing there awkwardly for a moment before her sense kicked back in and she remembered why she was there in the first place. “Thank you,” she forced a small smile that Sam reciprocated.  
  
“Yeah, well, thanks for not blowing up on me about ruining your shirt.” Kim felt a twinge of guilt grow inside her towards the way she had reacted the first time around. If self-improvement was what she needed to achieve, being nice to Sam was definitely a step in that direction.  
  
_You_ _have_ _to_ _meet_ _me_. It rang through her thoughts as clear as it had in the dream, sending the hairs on her arms standing up and raising little bumps on her skin with them.  
  
“I’m Kim, by the way.” She held out her empty hand. Sam did the same, shaking her hand with a confused but genuine smile coming to her lips. The touch was familiar too— a hand she’d held before, maybe more than once.  
  
“Sam.”  
  
Kim’s nerves buzzed as they exchanged pleasant goodbyes and she started back down the road to her office, far more confident about her chances of breaking the time loop after their interaction.  
  
There was something about Sam that was important, Kim could nearly say it with no doubt: Sam had something to do with the time loop. It explained the dreams, the connection she felt to the girl, even the fact that seemingly no matter what she did, she couldn’t escape bumping into her every day.  
  
But part of her hoped it wasn’t— that it was just her speech and as soon as she left work today after presenting the perfected draft, the day would finally end and she would wake up tomorrow, with a wash machine full of coffee-stained clothes and an opened tube of concealer in her bathroom drawer.  
  
Kim left work beaming with confidence towards her successful presentation, not a trace of uncertainty remaining. If this was the change she needed to make, she made it and did so with flying colors— even earning some smiles and quiet claps as the speech came to a close.  
  
A triumphant grin permanently resided on her face until she got in bed, the sun long since set behind the horizon, leaving just the moon to beam dully from behind her curtains.  
  
She dozed off with the assurance she had been successful this time around, and dreamed of another new scene that held a similarly strange familiarity. A wave of emptiness— the kind that only came when emotions no longer sufficed— washed over her as the sight of Sam grew clear again.  
  
Sam was holding a gold necklace, the same one she had worn in the last two dreams, but the engraving was clear this time, and just as Kim read over it, a voice read it out, too.  
  
“Best bitches.” It was her own voice, hoarse and tired— how it sounded late at night or when she had gone a little too long without sleeping. A chuckle came from beside her and she looked to Sam again, noticing the wide smile on her face that seemingly softened her features. It instilled a lightness in Kim, one that almost cut through the numbness consuming her.  
  
“Look, it’s the only one the bodega had,” Sam explained, a hint of playful defensiveness in her tone. Kim sensed there was more to that than the girl was telling but she didn’t speak on it, simply nodding her head once and forcing a small smile to match the girl’s beside her.  
  
The scene changed no more than a second after, leaving Kim to stare at the heart-pendant of the necklace once again as it hovered over a bowl of mysteriously bubbling liquid. It resembled water but thicker, and the various ingredients and crystals surrounding it gave Kim the notion that it was definitely more than water.  
  
She held one end of the chain, and a hand that she could only assume to belong to Sam held the other, both lowering the pendant until it disappeared below the bubbles and sizzled within the questionable concoction.  
  
The necklace resurfaced, seemingly unharmed, dangling between them as Kim turned to face Sam again. They interlocked the little fingers of their empty hands and exchanged nods before their other hands made their way down the chain and each gripped one half of the heart, pulling gently in opposite directions and splitting the metal down its predetermined middle.  
  
Kim clipped her half around her neck as Sam did the same, the two of them turning to look at themselves in the small stand-up mirror just behind the, now stagnant, bowl of liquid.  
  
Kim looked somewhat different; her hair was messy and unkept, her eyes tired and empty, rimmed with the only noticeably similar trait between herself and the girl she saw in the reflection: dark circles.  
  
The emptiness inside her let up slightly as her gaze shifted to Sam’s reflection, a sense of security filling her with a warmth that made her want to stay there in that moment forever, with Sam by her side, nothing else to worry about.  
  
Kim stirred awake as the image of the two of them in the mirror faded to darkness. She wiped the hair from her forehead where it had begun to stick to the beads of sweat collecting there, noticing the pajamas she wore and how they didn’t match the ones she had fallen asleep in.  
  
Kim groaned loudly; she had a hunch the bottle of concealer would still be unused in her bathroom drawer when she went to check it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feedback is greatly appreciated and will probably prompt a sooner update. just sayin.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well this didn’t take as long as expected
> 
> i promised a less static chapter and i did not disappoint so i’m actually pretty proud of this. 
> 
> also if you didn’t see the previous notes, the names have been changed to kim and sam, as the new content has provided! 
> 
> and ik sam is supposed to be an undercover cop but that doesn’t fit this story and i like angst so oops.

Drastic measures was what she called it; drastic measures was what Kim called taking the day off work on quite possibly the biggest day of her entire career. A day she’d lived through three times now with little evidence of the loop getting close to breaking.

For all she knew, the loop would repeat fifty more times before she finally got it right, and that logic justified a few days to spend not reciting the same speech she had grown so tired of hearing herself run through. And some promotion didn’t matter if there was no ‘tomorrow’ to receive it.

Sam was the face fresh on her mind, green eyes committed to her memory like she’d spent a lifetime staring into them. The scene from the dream felt strange in her thoughts, almost too real to be part of her imagination. Calling it to her thoughts felt like wading through mud; sticky and tireless, as if her brain was forcibly trying to stop her from remembering.

She focused on the necklace— best bitches— and felt a wave of nostalgia hit her with such force that nausea immediately followed it.

It had to be Sam. There was something inexplicable cursing Kim’s life, and the only way out of it seemed oddly tied to some stranger on the streets.

So, running on adrenaline and an intense distaste for what her life had suddenly succumbed to, Kim threw on the nearest somewhat-presentable outfit and stepped out of her apartment, leaving the concealer tube securely shut in her bathroom drawer.

She wasn’t sure what her plan was, but she sure as hell wasn’t stopping for coffee on the way.

The streets were noticeably less crowded, not yet overtaken by the work-hour rush, but Kim still had to push past her fair share of slow-walkers to make it to the building she’d found herself stopped in front of quite often recently, but the scene was different at the earlier hour.

A bulky older man stood at the front door of the building, hoisting a box up to his chest and carrying it to the curb. His arms were covered in intricate and intertwining tattoos, each one in varying dark shades of red and black. Julia figured she should have been intimidated by the man— who held a solid foot or more of height on her— but she marched up to him nonetheless, calling out a ‘hey’ to get his attention.

“Those boxes belong to a girl, right? Dark, curly hair, about my height?” She didn’t wait for an answer because she knew it already. “Where is she?” Her tone was probably a little too frantic, and the man’s immediate shift of expression from neutrality to confusion confirmed that, but she couldn’t bring herself to care all that much. Her cheeks heated slightly pink, nonetheless.

The man shifted the weight of the box to one hand and reached the other up to scratch his shaved head, eyeing Kim suspiciously. “Doesn’t live here anymore, as far as I’m concerned,” he said through a short, indignant chuckle, tossing the box to the sidewalk with little regard for its contents. Kim was pretty sure she heard something shatter from inside it. “If you see her, tell her this isn’t a homeless shelter and that I’m sending her debt to collection if the money isn’t here by Monday.” He offered a quick nod before turning back to the building and disappearing inside.

Just as the door shut behind him, Kim heard a familiar voice growing louder from around the corner until dark curls came into view. “That’s my stuff, asshole!” Sam sped up to reach the pile of boxes, but stopped, frozen in her tracks when her eyes met Kim’s. Kim swore she saw the color drain from the girl’s face as she stared, but it quickly returned as red-tinted cheeks as Sam took a few steps closer.

“What the hell are you doing here?” She asked, with just enough recognition in her gaze to shock Kim into speechlessness. Sam glanced between the man standing in the window and the probably dumbfounded look on Kim’s face a few times before throwing her arms up impatiently.

“You know who I am?” Kim managed, despite the cloudiness growing thicker in her head. Sam’s eyes widened for less than a second— just long enough for Kim to notice— but she hurriedly narrowed them and crossed her arms over her chest.

“You’re some lady standing outside my apartment complex.” It was a weak recovery and Kim saw right through it. The past three loops, Kim had written off the odd recognition in Sam’s expression as nothing more than a little abnormal, but seeing it now, she felt her heart race at the realization that something much greater lay behind it.

“You know who I am,” Kim repeated, this time a statement rather than a question. Sam put a step of distance between them, a look of slight panic painting over her face.

“You have me confused with someone else.”

“No, I don’t. You’re Sam, and I’m willing to bet you already know my name, too.” Kim had a moment of self-doubt as she said it— a moment of realizing that if this girl truly _didn’t_ know who she was, then Kim probably sounded as insane as the many homeless people who littered the Brooklyn streets. Her makeup-less face, bedhead, and choice of outfit probably didn’t help her case.

“Have you been stalking me?” And the defensiveness in her tone was convincing, almost so much so that Kim wanted to back down and leave the girl alone, but giving up wasn’t part of her vocabulary, and if she had to scare some girl on the street to free herself of this stupid curse, then so be it.

“No, I— this might sound crazy, but we’ve been stuck living this day for three days now.” Sam cocked her head at that, but the confusion seemed less towards the statement and more towards something Kim couldn’t identify.

“I don’t have time for this,” Sam mumbled through gritted teeth, pushing past Kim and taking to gathering up the boxes strewn along the sidewalk. But Kim hadn’t come there to take no for an answer.

“You’ve spilled coffee on me _three days in a row_ ,” Kim called after her, grasping at straws to keep the conversation from ending. “And every one of those nights I dreamed about you and me and that stupid heart necklace and some cryptic message about having to meet you or some shit.” And if Sam really didn’t recognize her, then she definitely sounded like some psychotic stalker.

But instead of pulling out her phone and dialing police like she probably should have, Sam whipped around, shock twisting her features. “Necklace? You saw a necklace?”

Kim drew in a breath of relief, though her heart began to pound harder against the back of her ribs. “Yeah, I saw a lot of weird shit, and none of it makes sense, so if you have any information on why we’re both stuck in this Groundhog Day knockoff, I’d greatly appreciate you sharing it with me.”

Sam lowered the box in her grip and set it on top of another, bringing a hand to her eyes and scrubbing at them wearily. “Okay,” she finally spoke, frustrated and defeated, like Kim had pulled her teeth to hear it. “Just shut up about time loops, you sound like a head case.”

Kim obliged and remained silent, her head already reeling with a million thoughts and questions that she hoped would find answers soon. Sam sighed quietly, rubbing at the back of her neck awkwardly to fill the gap.

“Do you want to get coffee or something?” Sam asked, nodding towards Kim’s obviously coffee-lacking hands.

Kim couldn’t even begin to process the turn of events over the last hour, but despite her brain running at a million miles a minute, a strange clarity filled her thoughts— the muddy memory of the dream growing clear and easy to call to mind. And she had an inkling of suspicion that it had to do entirely with being around the girl this curse was almost certainly tied to.

“Please,” Kim chuckled shortly as Sam nodded and motioned for her to lead the way. “Just don’t spill it down my shirt this time,” she tacked on under her breath, starting back down the sidewalk with a new sense of adrenaline flooding her body.

The coffee shop was too crowded for the two girls to find a seat inside, so they settled on standing against the cool brick wall of the exterior, despite the ‘no loitering’ sign hanging close by. Kim sipped her iced coffee in silence for the first few minutes, and Sam did the same, only breaking the quiet to thank Kim for buying both drinks.

“The least I can do for some information.”

Sam rested the heel of one foot against the wall behind her, chewing on the inside of her cheek for a moment before speaking.

“There’s not much to tell,” she started, flipping her hair to the opposite side of her face. “Nothing’s really changed since the first day. It’s been the same thing for the last three months, until a few days ago when you remembered one of the loops.”

Kim choked on her coffee, swallowing down the sip in her mouth and wiping at her lips with the back of her hand. “ _Three months?_ ”

Sam nodded. “Eighty-six days if my counting’s right.”

“Jesus,” Kim couldn’t even begin to fathom living through another week of the same day, let alone more than that. A pang of sympathy twisted her gut at the thought, a newfound urgency to break the loop growing inside her. “What do you know so far?”

“That the world sucks and we’re probably stuck like this,” Sam brought the straw to her mouth with a dry chuckle but never took a sip. It was a laugh Kim couldn’t bring herself to reciprocate despite some deep urge that told her she should. She brought up the firm reminder to herself that Sam was a stranger, no matter how much an ache in her chest told her otherwise. She looked to Sam blankly, and the taller girl understood the meaning behind the stare. “The dreams— if that’s what they even are— they never make any sense. It’s always me and you, but not like we are now. We’re— _different_ , I can’t explain it.” Kim listened intently, growing almost impatient as Sam paused to swallow down some of her drink.

“Well, try to,” she pressed, probably just a little too overbearing. Again, her stomach twinged slightly at her own tone, in the way she would expect it to at the guilt of saying something insulting to someone she cared about. Sam narrowed her eyes slightly in Kim’s direction.

“For one, you’re less of a bitch in the dreams than you are in person.”

Kim figured she deserved that. And she pushed away the thought of how many days Sam spent tolerating her coffee-stain-induced outburst in the last eighty-six she’d lived through. Sam continued before Kim could react to the jibe.

“And your name’s different. Julia.” Kim flushed at the sound, her chest tight and pounding like a drum as the name repeated in her head, just the way she had heard it in her own dream. But something about hearing it uttered in person felt unnaturally familiar, and she had to lean more of her weight against the bricks to fight off the dizziness overcoming her. Despite the aversion every fiber of her body seemed to have towards it, something deeper and intangible wanted to listen to Sam say it all day. “Or Jules, I guess. I call you that sometimes, too.”

Slowly, a few of Kim’s endless questions faded away, plucked from her thoughts and replaced with answers, facts she could no longer ignore. ‘Julia’ hadn’t been some indiscernible clue from her subconscious. It was somehow the name she went by in whatever alternate _something_ was playing through her and Sam’s head at night. The idea quickly sprouted countless new questions in the wake of the handful that had just disappeared.

She couldn’t manage a reply through the turmoil of her thoughts.

“I think it’s obvious whatever this is, it’s connected to me and you.” Kim nodded in agreement at that, nibbling on the tip of her straw for the sake of channeling her nerves into some minute action. “Can’t figure out why you just started remembering the loops, though,” the curly-haired girl added as an afterthought, in a way that told Kim she wasn’t expecting to find any clarification.

“So, what have you done for the last three months, then?” Kim asked, mostly because she needed some less significant topic to offer her a chance to collect herself and decide what else she wanted to ask. She meant no offense by asking, but it was obvious Sam stiffened a little at the inquiry.

She sighed heavily. “At first, I actually tried to break it, spent most of my days pissed off at the world for picking me of all people.” She swirled the ice around her cup, a solemn expression taking over her features. Her gaze fell to the trash-riddled sidewalk below them. “I tried everything. And nothing worked.” It was nearly defensive, low and steely like Sam was trying to convince herself and Kim of statement. A pause followed, neither girl feeling particularly keen on breaking the quiet. Sam did, ultimately, with a false laugh and more swirling of her iced coffee. “Now, I just take advantage of being able to do whatever the fuck I want without consequences the next day.”

Kim returned an identically false laugh, too shaken by the information to conjure up an appropriate response. “Waking up without a hangover would be nice, I guess,” she settled on, although the idea was nearly last on her list of concerns. She felt as if she were watching the scene unfold from behind unfamiliar eyes, like her body was there but her mind was far from it, lost among the tangle of senseless events that had begun to plague her since the whole time-loop-shitshow started.

She glanced to Sam just as the taller girl flashed a shadow of a smirk, quickly taken over by a tired look. Sam tilted her cup in a ‘cheers’ kind of way, but her face read nothing of concurrence. “And waking up not overdosed is even better,” she mumbled, barely loud enough for Kim to catch. Vaguely uncomfortable silence swelled between them, each passing moment serving as a catalyst for the gnawing inside Kim. Again, she wondered why she felt a sense of sympathy for the girl, who days before had been nothing more than an annoying complication on her way to work. But after the dreams and the days she spent with Sam never far from her thoughts, she couldn’t help but feel a magnetic pull of sorts between them, and the implication of the girl resorting to drugs to get through her repeating days made that tug feel more like a heavy ache between Kim’s ribs.

“Now that I’m— awake,” she said, for lack of a better word, “maybe there’s a way for us to finally break this thing.” Her chest warmed at the thought of the two of them teaming up, but the warmth quickly fizzled out like a dying flame as Sam hurriedly shook her head. Kim watched, deflated as Sam swallowed down the generous sip in her mouth.

“No,” she all but growled, still shaking her head, “I’ve wasted enough time on this shit— followed every insane lead I could think of, and it all ended with me in the same place. _Literally_.” Kim attempted to interrupt, but Sam was quick to cut her off. “If you want to try and fix this on your own, go right ahead, but I’m staying the hell out of it.”

Kim was dumbstruck by the sharp change of tone, anticipating a million different outcomes to this situation, but none where Sam outright refused to comply for some unknown, probably selfish, reason. She wondered momentarily how a person could be so unhappily content with such a terrible life.

“Why did you agree to talk to me, then?” Kim asked, struggling to keep exasperation from coating the words.

“Because you’d bug me every day if I didn’t. I told you what I know. Whatever you choose to do after this— I don’t care.” It was probably true, but Kim had seen Sam lie once today, and she wouldn’t put it past the girl to do it again.

“You seemed to care a decent amount when I brought up the necklace,” Kim easily retorted, watching Sam’s features fall from defense to somewhere caught between annoyance and curiosity, victim to some internal debate. The girl opened her mouth once to speak, but quickly bit down on her tongue hard enough to accentuate the muscles in her jaw. “I know there’s some part of you that wants to figure this out.” And perhaps Kim was overstepping with the assumption, but if it drove the point, then a little impudence was worth it. Sam shot her a pointed glare, obviously not taking kindly to the sentiment.

“You don’t know anything about me,” Sam snapped, kicking off the wall and dropping the last quarter of her coffee into a nearby trash can. She wiped the wetness from her hands on her tattered pants and turned back to face Kim. “Just go home. The quicker you accept this as your new, fucked-up normal,” she paused, throwing up her hands slightly, “the better.” She didn’t stick around to see Kim’s reaction, spinning around and heading back towards the apartment complex she came from.

Kim almost called some petty remark after her, but held her tongue and stormed off in the opposite direction, unsure what to make of the interaction.

She hadn’t realized where she was headed until she was pushing open the bell-ridden door of the local bodega and marching past the cashier’s greeting to a section of rosaries and jewelry, all cheap and mostly tacky. It only took her a minute to find the golden heart pendant, tarnished letters reading out the phrase that made her head dizzy all over again. _Best bitches_.

Kim roughly tugged it from where it hung and walked it to the register with a wad of bills crumpled in her other hand.

She had no plan whatsoever and no idea what a piece of faux gold jewelry could do to help, but she pocketed it anyway, only knowing one thing for sure.

Sam definitely hadn’t seen the last of her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i reeeallly liked writing this chapter and i hope you all enjoyed reading it too! drop me a comment perhaps? i’ll love you forever. 
> 
> more updates coming soon!


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